A Masterpiece of Asymmetrical War?

It must be a slow news week when UPI dedicated not one, but two articles to the "asymmetrical" merits of the Varyag. No, not that Varyag, the old Soviet era Slava class Red Ukraine cruiser which has been renamed Varyag. Martin Sieff exaggerates with this analogy.

But in strategic terms, the Slavas, especially the Varyag in the Pacific, are the heirs of the major battleships and battle-cruisers of the German navy during World War II. Leviathans like the Bismarck, the Tirpitz and the Scharnhorst were never capable by themselves of disputing British command of the sea: The main threat to Britain's survival came from Nazi submarines, or U-Boats, sinking the convoyed cargo ships bringing the feed and oil from North America to keep Britain in the war.

But the big German battlewagons earned their keep by tying up far larger forces of the British navy to prevent them breaking out and wreaking havoc. The mere fear that the Tirpitz was on its way led Britain's top naval commanders to panic and scatter the Arctic convoy to the Soviet Union's PQ-17 in 1942. Many ships were sunk and hundreds of sailors killed.

This is why we like our modern rating system for surface combatants, it allows us to transcend eras of maritime power in these types of high level discussions.

Under our modern rating system, the Slava class is armed with 16 SS-N-12 Sandbox nuclear-capable supersonic anti-ship missiles, 64 SA-N-6 Grumble long-range SAMs, and 40 SA-N-4 Gecko short-range SAMs. Under our rating system, the short range SA-N-4s do not get counted, so the Slava class rates with 80 battle force missiles as a 3rd rate battleship. The Bismark was hardly a 3rd rate battleship in the WWII era. The second article concludes like this.

Like those famous German warships, the Varyag and its sisters are no paper tigers: Their destructive power is very real. But like the old German ships, the Varyag's larger, strategic purpose is to deter U.S. carrier battle groups from operating freely in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean by the very threat of its presence. The Varyag is a masterpiece of asymmetrical war.

The Varyag was recently modernized, currently representing the most powerful surface combatant in the Russian Navy, and yes we include the Pyotr Velikiy which may or may not be capable of a long range deployment. However, the attempt to sell the Varyag as the pearl of the Pacific, much less representing a Bismark battleship of our era, is a bit too much exaggeration for us.

Indeed if we ignore the US Navy in the Pacific completely, we note the two Atago class first-rate battleships and four Kongo class second-rate battleships in service with Japan. Furthermore Taiwan has 4 third-rate battleships with the Kee Lung class, while South Korea will soon have 3 King Sejong the Great class third-rate battleships in the near future.

For some, the cold war will never end. Even in some hypothetical future conflict between Russia and the US in the Pacific, even if the tasking for the Varyag was to sink a US aircraft carrier, the primary concern for the Varyag wouldn't be an air attack from carrier aviation, it would be avoiding contact with US submarines.

The Varyag is a great warship, but teh Varyag is not the masterpiece of asymmetrical war at sea. In the modern naval warfare era it is hard to imagine any warship over 11,000 tons is a masterpiece of asymmetrical war. If one is looking for an asymmetrical weapon at sea, you start by looking to the submarine.